Race and Ethnicity Midterm

Sociology

the academic discipline that studies group life : society, social interactions , and human social behavior

Sociological Imagination

helps us understand the ways history , society, and biography intersect and is a perspective that encourages us to understand our lives as historically and culturally situated

Race and COVID-19

Covid 19 was racialized and black and brown workers were considered crucial jobs that needed to work and risk being exposed.

Racial order

the collection of beliefs , suppositions, rules and practices that shapes the way groups are arranged in a society ; generally it is a hierarchical categorization of people along the lines of certain physical characteristics

White space

a social space where white people are the dominant or expected group and where white cultural norms, experiences, and behaviors are treated as normal.

Intersection of race and Digital technologies

digital technologies can reproduce existing racial inequalities through algorithms, data, access to technology, surveillance, and the people who design technology.

• Problematic applications of AI

• - facial recognition can’t identify some black people

• Tech world as a white, male space

• - Ai is biased to the white male because white males are programming it

• Cyber racism

• - the widespread use of digital technology to spread their ideologies

• Technological redlining

• the ways algorithms reinforce racial and gender oppression and enact profiling Post Racial society - the idea that race is no longer an important source of inequality or discrimination. Fitzgerald challenges this idea by showing that racial inequality continues even when people claim to be “color-blind.

Racialized space

a physical or social space that takes on racial meaning because of the racial groups associated with it and the inequalities that exist within it.

Racial demographics – U.S., North Carolina, UNC’s campus (2020 data)

demographic information showing the racial and ethnic composition of a population. The important point is to understand that racial groups are distributed differently across places and institutions.

• Demographic projections for 2050

projections show major changes in the racial and ethnic makeup of the United States, including a decline in the percentage of the population identified as non-Hispanic white.

action in admissions

after the Supreme Court decision, UNC could no longer use race directly as a factor in admissions in the same way as before, creating new questions about racial diversity in higher education.

will lose majority status?”

the headline can make demographic change sound like white people are becoming a minority in the same way historically subordinated racial groups have been. It is important to question what “majority” means because numerical majority and social power are not necessarily the same thing.

• Fears surrounding demographic changes

demographic changes can create fears among dominant groups who believe they may lose social, political, or economic power.

Race- define

a socially constructed system of categorizing people based on perceived physical characteristics, such as skin color and other bodily features. Race does not have fixed biological boundaries.

• Biological vs. socially constructed concept

biological theories treat races as natural genetic categories, while the sociological view understands race as created and given meaning by society.

• Evidence? Be able to show how we know race is socially constructed ratherthen having a genetic or biological reality.

human genetic variation does not divide neatly into racial categories. People who are considered members of the same race can be genetically very different, while people assigned to different races can be genetically similar.

Ethnicity/ethnic group – define

a group whose members identify with one another based on shared cultural traditions, ancestry, language, history, nationality, or other cultural characteristics.

Racial/ethnic

race generally refers to socially constructed physical categories, while ethnicity emphasizes shared culture, ancestry, traditions, and identity. They often overlap.

Minority group/subordinate group

- group that has less than the proportionate share of the goods and resources

Majority group/dominant group

- group that has more than the proportionate share of goods and resources

Racism-

any action, attitudes, beliefs or behaviors whether intentional or unintentional that threaten, harm or disadvantage members of one race/ethnic group or the group of itself, compared to another

• Prejudice

• - attitudes or beliefs that are not based upon evidence but instead upon pre-conceived notions and stereotypes that is not subject to change even with evidence

• Institutional discrimination (institutional racism)

discrimination built into organizations, institutions, laws, policies, and social practices that creates unequal outcomes for racial or ethnic groups.

** Individual discrimination

-** discriminatory actions taken by an individual against members of a subordinate group

• Internalized racism

when members of a racial or ethnic minority group internalize negative beliefs or stereotypes about their own racial or ethnic group.

• Colorblind racism

explaining racial inequality as if race does not matter while ignoring the historical and structural causes of racial inequality.

Racial justice activism

efforts to challenge racial inequality and change institutions, policies, and social conditions that produce racial disadvantage.

Colorism

- the practice of discriminating against darker skin people and privileging lighter skinned people

Race privilege

advantages and benefits people receive because of the racial group they are perceived to belong to.

Racial terminology – appropriate versus inappropriate terms

racial terminology changes over time and depends on context. Appropriate terminology should respect how groups identify themselves and avoid stereotypes or degrading language.

Racial ideologies

systems of beliefs and ideas that explain, justify, or give meaning to racial differences and racial inequality.

• Color-blindness (or color-blind ideology)

the belief that race should not be acknowledged and that treating everyone the same is enough to eliminate racial inequality.

• Color-consciousness

recognizing that race matters because racial identities and racial inequalities affect people's experiences.

Racial identities

the ways people understand and identify themselves in relation to race and how those identities are shaped by society.

Millennial generation – Millennials on race: The Woke Generation?

Millennials are often described as having more racially diverse social experiences and greater support for racial equality, although racial attitudes among Millennials are not all the same.

Status hierarchies

dominant/minority group that has more than their proportionate share of the goods and resources (sociological not statistical)

• Shifting the investigative lens toward privilege

instead of only studying the disadvantages experienced by racial minorities, sociologists can also study the advantages received by dominant groups.

The social construction of whiteness

whiteness is not simply a biological category; its meaning and boundaries have changed historically as different groups have been accepted into the category of “white.”

• Brazil versus the US

racial classification works differently in different societies. Brazil historically used more categories and placed greater importance on skin color and appearance, while the United States developed a stronger Black/white racial boundary.

White privilege

the rights benefits and advantages enjoyed by white people or the immunity granted to whites not granted to non-whites

• Examples of white privilege

greater access to opportunities, institutions, neighborhoods, education, employment, and other resources without having race create the same barriers faced by racial minorities.

• White privilege as invisible

privilege can be difficult for white people to notice because it often appears to them as normal or as simply the result of their own individual choices.

• Challenge the idea that privilege is invisible

white privilege can become visible when people examine racial disparities and compare the different experiences of racial groups.

• White fragility

• - Diangelo 2018 : a state when even a minimal amount of racial stress becomes intolerable and results in defensiveness

Structure

the larger social system, including institutions, social patterns, and rules, that shapes people's opportunities and behavior.

Agency

- freedom we have to determine our own destiny

• Pluralism

a society in which different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups maintain parts of their identities while participating in the larger society.

** assimilation -**

the idea that people drop culture ties in order to “become” American

Explain how the following groups “became white” over time: Irish Americans, Jewish-

By assimilation, boarding schools,

Americans, and the complicated shifting racial identity of Mexican Americans

racial categories can change over time. Groups that were once viewed as racially different or subordinate, such as Irish and Jewish Americans, gradually became incorporated into whiteness. Mexican American racial identity has been more complicated and has shifted depending on time, place, law, and social context.

• Understand these as racialization processes

racialization is the process through which society gives racial meaning to a group or social difference.

• Understand the links between whitening and social mobility

becoming accepted as white could provide greater access to jobs, housing, education, political participation, and other opportunities.

• Psychological wage (DuBois) -

W.E.B. DuBois argued that poor white workers could receive a “psychological wage” from whiteness because racial status gave them social advantages and a sense of superiority even when they were economically disadvantaged.

• Becoming white

- process where a formerly subordinate group is now viewed as white and gets the advantages

Passing

- trying to pass as white individually , cut ties with your family and community

White ethnicity

identifying with a European ethnic background while also being part of the larger white racial category.

• White ethnics

-white americans who are not ango-saxton protestant

• Ethnic enclaves

-communities of immigrants of the same race/ethnicity that live near each other and businesses cater to their community ex. China Town

• Ethnic revival

- white ethnics embracing and celebrating heritage through festivals, food ect

• Symbolic ethnicity

- ways white ethnics embrace their ethnicity as long as it doesn't challenge there white middle class status

• Intersectionality – gender and whiteness

race and gender can interact to shape people's experiences. Whiteness does not operate separately from gender, class, sexuality, or other identities.

Racial socialization

the process through which people learn racial meanings, attitudes, identities, and expectations from family, school, media, peers, and society.

White privilege versus white racism

white privilege refers to advantages associated with whiteness, while white racism refers to beliefs, practices, and institutions that produce or maintain racial inequality.

Racial ideologies – how does color-blindness perpetuate white privilege?

color-blind ideology can make racial inequality appear unrelated to race and therefore hide the continuing effects of historical and institutional racism.

White racial identity

how white people understand and make meaning of their racial identity.

• Helms’ notion of racial identity development

Helms describes stages through which white people can develop their understanding of race, moving from limited awareness of racism toward greater awareness of racism and responsibility for challenging it.

Institutional privilege

-the advantage individuals accumulate through white privilege and takes the form of customs, norms and policies that benefit white people

• Locked-in advantage

• - advantage businesses have as being the first to make them in the market

o Evidence of?

evidence can be seen when advantages created historically continue to benefit white people even after explicitly discriminatory laws or practices have changed.

Challenging white privilege – examples

recognizing racial inequality, examining institutions and policies, challenging discriminatory practices, and making racial privilege visible.

Millennials on Race – evidence of racial resentment?

racial attitudes among Millennials are mixed. Even when Millennials express support for racial equality, racial resentment and negative racial attitudes can still exist.

Scientific racism

trying to use science to prove the inate inferiority of some groups and superiority of others

Drapetomania

- mental illness that runaway slaves suffered from ; the colonists believed they had it so well why would they want to run away

Extinction thesis

the belief that certain racial or ethnic groups were naturally destined to disappear because they were supposedly less fit or unable to survive.

Eugenics

- having healthier society helping the healthiest and ablest members of society have more children to better the society

• Compulsory sterilization laws

- in 1932 26 states passed these laws that defined 10s of thousand of people as unfit, mental and physically ill, epilepsy, poor, uneducated or black

• Forced sterilizations

– government sterilizing women without their consent : black woman are targeted

• President Roosevelt and white elite fear of “race suicide”

- white women were having less children and black women were having more

• Current manifestations of ‘race suicide’ beliefs among elites

modern versions can appear in fears that white people will lose political, cultural, or demographic dominance because of changing birth rates and immigration.

Racial genomics

the study of genetic variation in relation to human populations and the ways race is incorrectly or appropriately connected to genetics.

• Race and the Human Genome Project (2003)

the Human Genome Project showed that humans share the overwhelming majority of their genetic material and did not provide biological support for traditional racial categories.

• Genetic ancestry testing – limitations of?

ancestry tests can identify patterns of genetic ancestry, but they cannot simply determine someone's socially assigned race. Results depend on databases, reference populations, and how ancestry is defined.

• Pharmacogenomics

the study of how genetic differences influence people's responses to medications.

• Racialized medicine

the use of racial categories in medical treatment or research, which can be problematic when race is treated as a biological substitute for genetic information.

• Genome geography

examining where genetic variations are geographically distributed rather than assuming they correspond to social racial categories.

• Genetic options theory

the idea that genetic differences can provide different possible explanations for variation, but these differences should not automatically be interpreted as racial differences.

The Sociology of Race

the sociological study of how race is created, maintained, experienced, and connected to social institutions and inequality.

• Functionalist perspective – assimilax\tionist paradigm, cultural pluralism

functionalist approaches generally ask how social systems work and how racial and ethnic groups fit into or contribute to society.

Anglo-conformity

- conforming to white culture

, melting pot- the idea of looking at the U.S. as a melting pot that looks the same and you can see all of the ingredients instead of a salad where each

the melting pot metaphor suggests that different groups blend into a common American culture.

• Conflict perspective

focuses on competition over power and resources and argues that racial inequality can benefit dominant groups.

ethnicity paradigm,

- the idea that immigrants come here and assimulate; decrease difference

• Symbolic interactionism

focuses on how people create meanings through everyday interactions and how racial meanings and identities are socially produced.

W.E.B. DuBois and E. Franklin Frazier and the discipline of sociology

both contributed important sociological research on race, inequality, Black communities, and the social structures shaping racial experiences.

Power and Conflict theories

theories that emphasize unequal power, competition over resources, and the ways dominant groups maintain advantages.

• Marxist theories

focus on economic class, capitalism, labor, and the relationship between economic inequality and racial inequality.